Now to Something Interesting: You (Poll)

When considering how to plan my writing, your opinion matters

Photo by mali desha on Unsplash

“All of Life” could have been named “All of Your Life”, to reflect what is there, deep inside every post.

Because, even though the writer (me) expresses everything out of their own thoughts, using their own words, trying to tell something that seems important, to the writer – the purpose is for this to be read by you, making your life somehow different.

It’s all about you.

Writing on Substack has become a challenge to me. I want to give you something that you like, and something you need, but the platform doesn’t work well anymore – it doesn’t bring the message to you. Or you are being distracted, perhaps, or not reading anything at all? Whatever the case, the articles are usually stuck with a few people only, and sometimes so few, that they count just one or two – or even none.

It’s connected with a general defect in the distribution mechanism: I have seen how new writers on Substack often get zero subscribers and zero reads of their articles. They are not being let in. It wasn’t like that a year or two ago, but now it is.

There seems to be an over-saturation of the platform. People have had enough of hopeful writers’ attempts to catch their attention, and now they are seeking that ultimate stuff – only – that will change their day.

No room anymore for giving attention to people who need that – no wish to make the writers happy. It really has become all about the reader – about you. And as important you may be, and surely are, I also want to get something out of it.

This makes me seriously consider if Substack is the right place to be, for me as a writer. But also, what exactly makes sense to publish – here or elsewhere.

What will work? What will give you the reading experience you are looking for? What will stand out from the overload? What will allow me to become happy for delivering what you want?

I’m still not talking about paid contents, as this seems to be even harder to arrange. A recent post at Notes from one of the hard-working and popular people here, revealed that she has 13,000 subscribers now – a serious amount! But only 250 of those are paying. That’s a bit less than 2%.

Now, 2% may be a good number, and 250 paying subscribers are definitely more than none. She is successful, no doubt about that, and for a number of good reasons – especially, she gives her subscribers, paying or not, something they like to get. I believe it’s that simple.

But success is different for her and me, so I wouldn’t be able to do like here – I wouldn’t do it right if trying to copy her success. Because, I’m me, and even though it’s all about you, I have to give you something that I’m capable of giving – write something that I can write, for an audience that I can find. And smiling the way I can smile, etc. – the person behind the words seems to matter.

This means that “you” isn’t just anyone – it’s those particular people out there who want to read something that I’m capable of writing and who wouldn’t mind that it comes from me.

But what exactly is that? Where do our universes meet? I want to know!

Hence, a poll! 😁

During the life-span of “All of Life”, I have written about several topics, in several ways. If you wish, you can try (on a computer) to take a look at the front page of this Substack – https://life.inidox.com – to see what exactly is in each topic and which articles may inspire you. You may have read some of it earlier, or decided not to – whatever, it’s still there for you to judge¹.

The contents have been divided in categories, which are not easy to navigate from the mobile app – they work better on a computer.

There’s an overview of the categories as well, at https://life.inidox.com/newsletters. Click on each to see articles in that category.

Which of these categories are interesting to you? We can discuss the individual articles later, but I’m trying at first to zoom into an overall topic that will be interesting to you if done right:

And, eh, no offense, but it seems to me that many of the readers on Substack are actively avoiding anything that has to do with how the world functions – or how well. They don’t want to hear about politics, don’t want to read anything that challenges the prevailing order (or disorder) – they simply want some kind of escape from life, not information or thoughts about it.

How would you describe your main motivation for reading anything on Substack?

And just to test my assumption from before – when deciding what to read, and what to skip, are you considering the immediate value for you only, or do you seek inspiration for your talks with friends, etc., i.e., your “tribe” – or perhaps seeking interesting writers to follow more than interesting reads?

What is your preferred way of getting the texts you want to read?

That’s it for now!

I hope you want to participate, so that I can learn something about you (statistically, as this is anonymous) and plan my writing accordingly.

The poll mechanism is more primitive than I remember it – I think it has been changed since I last used it – so, if it doesn’t allow you to tell what you want to tell, please feel free to add comments. You can also send me a direct message, if you prefer to tell something privately.

I’m in general considering making and focusing on a dedicated newsletter, sent out through a platform for that to your email inbox. Alternatively, a kind of online magazine, but without the social part that has more or less stopped working on Substack (Notes). Or, if I can see a useful way of doing it, perhaps a continued effort on Substack, but not if I won’t reach any readers here.

And some bonus questions for those who wish to discuss:

The last few months have seen many VIPs joining Substack. Do you prefer to read their thoughts rather than the thoughts of ordinary people? Is it by itself interesting that they are VIPs, or is it more important that they write something you are interested in? Does it matter how well anything is written, or is it all about the topic?

1. Sometimes I do take away stuff. Sometimes I give up. I did on Medium, for instance, because, after a good start, all readers vanished. No interest at all anymore, neither for new nor old articles. And a large amount of articles on LinkedIn were also deleted at some point in time, because nobody ever read them – only the posts were read, not the articles.

And, recently, I switched off another Substack, Turning Life, that I had wanted to make into a more ambitious place, with a monthly “Magazine” overview, and with carefully crafted graphics, etc. – but which almost nobody wanted to read.

Next to that, I have closed down many websites and blogs during the years, even if they were about something I enjoyed writing about.

Without readers, I simply don’t enjoy publishing. I may still write, but “nobody” can omit reading it just as well on my own computer as on a public medium.